Scifi becomes a patent issue

This is a pretty amazing development. As the patent war heats-up in the mobile computing sector, Scifi is being recognized as instances of “prior art.”

Essentially, Samsung is using a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey to bash Apple’s IP case, citing it as prior art for tablets. There isn’t much in the scene that shows tablets in actual use (two sit on a table playing an interview but there’s no interaction with them). Better clips might have come from Star Trek: The Next Generation, which uses PADDs throughout that and the following series.

Read the article at FOSS Patents

We have two thoughts:

1. To interaction designers, this means knowing scifi could become a vital part of their work, since it’s public prior art.

2. To studios, this creates some pressure to use experienced designers (outside of production designers) on staff (or consulting) for interface/interaction design. It might also signal the possibility for studios to begin patenting what comes out of their own imaginations, since the relevancy to industry may be just a matter of time.